Golden Gate

De: James Philip

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Golden Gate is the 12th book in the New England Series set in a universe in which George Washington died at the Battle of Long Island in 1776 and…the Revolutionary War was lost.

It is Empire Day, Sunday 8th July 1979.

And the Golden Gate Project, the iconic totem of the new imperial regime in Government House, Philadelphia, is under attack, an attack that for all its supposed technological battlefield mastery, nobody in the British Empire saw coming and the consequences might be incalculable.

Things had seemed to be going so well! The Russian foothold in the Alaskan lands has been vanquished, the war with the Triple Alliance is over, almost history; and ‘the West’, specifically the vast former Californian lands of the old Spanish empire of New Granada is a freshly annexed colony of New England. In the Pacific, there is a stalemate; the Japanese tiger has been caged and in the coming year the expectation is that the fruits of ongoing massive mobilisation of the British Empire will see great new sea and air fleets drive the enemy all the way back into his fortress Home Islands.

Significantly, for the first time a native-born Viceroy has been enthroned as the Governor of the Commonwealth of new England, the war with the Mexicans is over and the conquest of North America from coast to gleaming coast is, after two centuries, complete, sparking a ‘no expense spared’, harum-scarum rush to colonise the new West Coast Golden Gate province.

However, not even New England’s new Governor, former cavalryman and Texan rancher, George Nathaniel Washington can imagine the half of the surprises the immediate future has in store for the vast, febrile continental empire he now rules.

On the East Coast Melody has embarked on her new – to her surprise, married – life in Manhattan, while Abe and Kate Lincoln and their inseparable friend, Ted Forest have begun to settle into their new surroundings in Alto California.

And now, events are about to take yet another seismic turn. The war with the Empire of Japan which had seemed to be so far, far away across the vast tracts of the greatest ocean on the planet is about to flare anew and afterwards, none of our heroes lives will be the same again.

This time the Imperial Japanese Navy has succeeded in springing a likely devastating assault on the Empire upon which the sun literally never sets; the battle for the Golden Gate is under way.

Is there anything the unprepared, under-strength defenders can do to avert a potentially war-losing blow to the prestige of the British Empire?

And what does fate hold for Abe, Kate, ted Forest, their friends and comrades in the face of the coming firestorm.

And in the East, what price the survival of the Washington Administration as the Pax Britannica’s enemies strike a devastating surprise blow on of all days, Empire Day?

This reproofed and reformatted edition of Golden Gate was published on 15 April 2025.